They involve a lot of shooting and impossible action and an aloof hero who speaks in cryptic phrases and with a cunning others can’t even imagine somehow saves a group embroiled in some sort of hopeless crisis.

Back in the day, this kind of movie would star Bruce Willis. Yippee-ki-yay, 49ers.

I’d describe Harbaugh as more eccentric than outright cool. He’s John McClane -- with a “Monk” bent.

Harbaugh’s press conferences don’t even make sense sometimes, and I don’t think it’s on purpose, as opposed to surly Bill Belichick’s brevity.

I ran into him one time as he was coming out of a convenience store near Chargers Park. He was holding the two bites that remained of a hot dog, and he got right in my face to ask me a question about something that I don’t remember. I was too busy looking at the mustard that had somehow made it onto his nose. I remember wondering why in the world he had attacked that dog so ferociously.

And that sweatshirt tucked into his pants! It’s a better look than Belichick’s hoodie. Maybe. Certainly, should the 49ers and Patriots make the Super Bowl, we will have fallen so far sartorially from Lombardi and Landry.

But man, in a way that compares to Belichick, does Harbaugh ever have stones. Iron stones. Stones that start fire. Makes it difficult to walk kind of stones.

Colin Kaepernick is the latest (and greatest) manifestation of that nerve. Harbaugh decided in November that even though his starting quarterback, Alex Smith, was healthy the 49ers would proceed with Kaepernick as the QB.

The 49ers were 6-2-1 under Smith, and his season passer rating was 104.1. His rating in the eight quarters prior to suffering a concussion was 140.2, as he had thrown more touchdowns in that span (five) than incompletions (four).

Harbaugh simply thought Kaepernick was the right guy.

The 49ers finished 5-2 under the second-year pro who had attempted 14 NFL passes prior to taking over for Smith in the middle of the game in which the deposed starter was concussed. Then in Saturday's divisional playoff game, Kapernick's first postseason venture, Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman unleashed a Kaepernick that had only been hinted at before, allowing the kid to run like no QB has ever done in the postseason.

Harbaugh’s approach to coaching is, in a word, fearless. In another word, it's relentless. Remember when he challenged a spot late in the fourth quarter of the preseason finale against the Chargers? Dude doesn’t play around.

The story has been told many times of Jack Harbaugh having instilled in his sons (Jim’s brother, John, is head coach of the Baltimore Ravens) the axiom: “Attack each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”

Indeed.

Harbaugh took over the 49ers coming off a 6-10 season with a quarterback (Smith) considered a bust. Harbaugh had moved over to San Francisco after four years coaching Stanford. That followed his three seasons as the head coach at the University of San Diego, his first head coaching gig.

I remember a few head coaches saying privately after Harbaugh was hired and immediately started talking tough that he was going to find out the NFL was a different game, a little more difficult to simply come in and immediately turn around a program.

One that I know of even told Harbaugh so in person.

If Schwarzenegger were playing Harbaugh, he might say as he stood over that coach’s crumpled body: “Yeah, that was real hard.”

See, Harbaugh’s first 49ers team went 13-3 and advanced to the NFC title game, falling an overtime field goal short of the Super Bowl. This season, Harbaugh became just the seventh man to ever win a division in his first two seasons as an NFL coach, as San Francisco went 11-4-1 and is again in the conference championship.

The 49ers had last made the playoffs following the 2002 season. Over the next eight years, they had seven losing seasons. Their best campaign in that span was 8-8.

They were one of four teams from 2003 through ’10 to not have a single winning season and one of six to never go to the playoffs. Their 46-82 record was worse than all but Detroit, Oakland and Cleveland.

Yeah, I’d say Harbaugh taking that team to its second straight NFC title match, this one Sunday at Atlanta, pretty much embodies an improbable plot and the eccentric hero rescuing a group from a hopeless crisis.